The invention relates to a ventilator roof for vehicles having a roof opening formed in a fixed roof surface, which can be closed by means of a cover that can be swung, by pivoting around a pivot axis, at, or near its rear edge, into a ventilation position in which the cover front edge is at a distance below the fixed roof surface while the rear edge of the cover is kept approximately at the height of the fixed roof surface, so that a ventilation gap is formed between the cover front edge and the front edge of the roof opening.
Such roofs are known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,911,497, as well as from U.S. Pat. No. 4,978,165. A common drawback of these prior art ventilator roofs is that they only provide a passive ventilation of the vehicle interior, due to negative pressure occurring above the fixed roof surface during vehicle movement, or due to the rising of warmer air from the vehicle interior, With the vehicle standing, the ventilation effect, thus achieved, is unsatisfactory.
Vehicle roofs with active ventilation have already been developed. Thus, it is known (published German Application DE 36 43 436 A1, FIGS. 1, 2 and 5) to integrate a cross current blower into the cover of a lifting roof, whereby the cover is provided with an air passage slit extending over a major portion of its width and whose edge is encircled by the housing of the cross current blower on both sides, from above and below. The blower housing forms a radial suction channel or exhaust channel on the cover's inner side, and forms a tangentially directed exhaust or suction channel on the outer cover side.
In accordance with another embodiment that German Application (FIGS. 3, 4 and 6), the cross current blower, in similar manner, is disposed in a wind deflector which is placed in front of the front edge of the roof opening on the fixed roof surface. In these known designs, the blower housing represents an add-on which projects upwardly above the roof surface. For reasons of visual esthetics and aerodynamic considerations (increased CD value), such an arrangement is not desirable.
Moreover, if the blower is integrated into the cover, sealing the roof against rain and wash water becomes a problem; the cover weight increases, and the cover mechanism must be stronger. If the blower is disposed above the roof surface in the wind deflector, ventilation with the cover closed is not possible.
It is also known (published German Application 35 40 546 A1 and Gebrauchsmuster 88 08 782 U1) to attach a motor powered ventilator and a solar energy source powering it to a vehicle lifting roof beneath a translucent cover on a wide carrier element which extends in the medial region of the roof opening in the driving direction of the vehicle. In another embodiment of this lifting roof, a radial ventilator and an associated solar energy source are attached at the underside of the translucent lifting cover (German Begraushsmuster 88 15 676 U1), so that they also are induced into executing the swing movement when the cover is pivoted.
A common drawback of such assemblies is that optical visibility is lost from a considerable portion of the cover area. Moreover, the overall headroom of the roof reaches dimensions which are undesirable for many applications in practice.